Grave Danger
by JustSteph
Summary: Post Ep for Grave Danger... although I used a little artistic licence with actual events.


"What you did… it was really amazing Catherine."

You wave your hand dismissively, but I'm not letting you get off easy on this one. You have to know what you did; what it meant.

I catch a hold of that hand and curl my own around it. It's unexpected, sure; you prove this by the look you give me: surprise, curiousity, fear.

"The lengths you went to for one of our team may have bypassed the others, but they haven't slipped by me. I know what you did to get the money."

"I just asked a question Sara" you say, shifting nervously on your own sofa.

"Bullshit" I shoot back, and your eyes widen a little at the coarse rejoinder.

"One million dollars cash, Catherine. You knew you were the only person in the team who had even a hope of coming up with that kind of money."

"Any of the others would have done the same" you reply instantly.

"Yes, and I'd be saying the same to them if they had. But _they_ didn't. _You_ did" I try and stress to you.

You sigh and try to run your fingers through your hair, realising as your hands get to your head that it's still done up in the messy top-knot you pulled it into so it was out of your way while you worked.

It's the first time I've seen you look anything less than immaculately groomed.

Your hands rest on your temples when I reach mine to your strawberry blonde locks and gently untangle your top-knot. I run my fingers through the soft curls a couple of times, setting them right before I place my hands back in my lap.

I swallow, and tell you "I know what it took, Cath."

You look right into my eyes as if you're searching me. You look beautiful, Catherine. All that's happened today and you look beautiful. I want to tell you that, but I know it's not what you need to hear right now.

Did you find what you were looking for in my eyes? I have to assume that you did, since this is when you choose to start talking.

"I sold my soul to the devil in a casino: dear old dad."

I nod. "The great Sam Braun."

"But worse than that, I sold my daughter out. He doesn't just own me now. He owns Lindsey too."

I want to protest but everything I know about your father tells me that you're right.

"Even the fact that I can give back what we didn't lose in the explosion is irrelevent. It was the act of asking that signed the deal."

I nod slowly. "Yeah."

"Yeah? That's all you got for me?"

I smile sympathetically, "I'm afraid so Cath. I wish I could tell you different."

You sigh again and we lapse into silence for a while.

"I sold my soul too, Cat."

"You did?"

"Every time I would obey my mother even though I knew that what she was asking of me was wrong, I sold a little piece more."

Your hand on mine this time. "It's not all gone, Sara."

I look into your eyes. For a second I think they're moist but then I realise that it's me who's welling up. "Whether it is or it isn't, that's not the point."

"What is the point?" you ask.

"The point is, you did an incredibly selfless thing tonight. And I wanted to thank you for trying. For all of us. And tell you that as many times as I've respected you in the past, I've never respected you more than I do right this minute."

I wish I knew what is behind the look you're giving me now. But you say nothing, and so I continue.

"You know as well as I do that you and I don't need the fever pitch we've been rising to lately. We're a good team. Part of that is our dynamic, and that means we're going to clash from time to time. But we don't need to let it escalate. I don't know about you, but when I get home after having an argument with you, I feel pretty awful."

You're still looking intently at me, and I'll admit I'm scared, until you say "I do too. Feel awful I mean. Especially the most recent."

I look away from you now, slightly embarrassed. "Ah. The suspension."

"Yeah. My approach was all wrong, Sara. I knew it was a sensitive issue. I should have waited until we were alone, and then…"

I put my finger on your lips. "Old news, Cat. None of it compares to the magnitude of what we've seen today."

Slowly you nod, and even more slowly I take my finger from your lips. "Clean slate?" you ask me.

When I smile, I realise it's the first time I've felt good all day. I'm grateful to you for making me feel that. "Clean slate" I reply.

"I wanted to thank you for what you did earlier, Sara" you tell me.

"What did I do?"

You sigh again, and my smile turns to a frown as my concern grows. "When I… when Warwick, Greg and I were…" you stop and roll your eyes. "God, why is this so hard to say? When we were digging and we thought we'd found… and then it turned out to be… you know…"

"The dog" I whisper gently.

You nod, and this time it's definitely you welling up. "When we found the dog, and I broke down… it…" you pause and take a deep breath. "I was so devastated. And you, you were right there, guiding me up and then your arms around me… you held me Sara. Letting me let it out however briefly, even though it was distracting you from thinking about Nick."

You look at me and blink your beautiful blue eyes, causing heavy tears to drop onto your cheeks.

"At that moment, I wanted to think about _you_" I say, "you were the important one."

"I should have been stronger than that."

"No Catherine…"

"You were" you interject.

"Because I took strength from that gesture too" I explain.

"Really?" you ask me, unsure. I'm not just saying it to assuage your guilt. It felt so good to have arms around me at a time when the whole of me was in so much internal pain.

"Really really" I tell you, and I smile at you. I move my thumbs to your cheeks and wipe away your tears, repeating the action each time fresh ones fall. When they slow down I continue to stroke your cheeks softly, tracing around the structure of a face I know so well.

I know when you close your eyes and sigh to me that it's time for me to stop. I know that. But as much as I know it, I can't stop my ministrations.

Running a hand past your ear and softly tracing your curls, it is the easiest thing in the world to pull you in towards me. You move slowly, not because you're resisting me at all, just because… because it feels right to do so; that's the pace of the moment: slow.

For a split second, your lips are all I can see and they're the most tempting thing in the world. But I'm not sure how you'd feel about that, and so when I lower my own lips it's to press them against your forehead as I slowly lower you into my arms.

If you can call any moment 'perfect' in a day when one of your colleagues and closest friends nearly died, this is it. My arms are steadily wrapped around you, one hand tracing through your hair as you run your own hand up and down that arm. I listen to you breathe and realise I've fallen into rythym with you.

"That's the other thing I think we need to talk about" you say quietly. "In the interests of the clean slate thing."

"What's that?" I whisper back to you, even though I kind of already know.

"What're we doing lately?" you ask me, and I tighten my hold on you at how vulnerable you sound asking the question.

"Well, right now I'm holding you on your sofa."

"And last week?"

I pause. "Last week… last week we were kissing in the locker room."

"That's modest of you" you tell me. I know it is; like you, I know that it was definitely you who kissed me.

"However it happened, I wasn't against it" I tell you. "And you know that" I add, kissing the top of your head.

"What were we doing last month?" you ask.

I sigh slightly. I wish I knew were you were going with this. "Last month I kissed you in your office."

"And I let you."

"You _let_ me?" I question, speaking in my normal voice for the first time since our change in positions.

You lift your head and look up at me, twisting in my arms so that. You're lying on top of me, your hand coming up to cup my chin. "I mean, I let you because I wanted you to kiss me."

I swallow down the lump forming in my throat. "Why?"

"I don't know" you blink at me, and again you look lost.

This time when I pull you into me it's to press my lips against yours. I do it gently, experimentally, testing you but also testing me. You feel so soft, and I kiss you slowly, pulling away from you all too soon.

"I don't know either" I say, repeating your words to me.

"Do we have to know?" you ask me, and that really is the million dollar question.

With you inches from my lips, strands of your blonde hair brushing my cheeks, I find it impossible to think objectively.

But maybe that's the point.

"Do you think we have to know, Sara?" you ask again, and your breath on my lips, the gentle weight of your body on top of mine is all I need to answer you.

"No" I breathe out, nanoseconds before I capture your lips again.


End file.
